= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
eli_sennesh comments on The Truth About Mathematical Ability - LessWrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (138)
Thanks!
Yvain / Scott Alexander is another example. See section 2 of his post The Parable Of Talents. I agree with most of what he says and find his post is quite insightful. But I think that his assessment of his mathematical ability is probably wrong, even though him struggling to get a C- in calculus probably reflects some sort of innate difference between his classmates. In fact, observing this was one of the proximate causes for me writing on the nature of mathematical ability.
Anecdata: I got an A in Calculus 1, a C+ in Calculus 2, and an A- in Calculus 3. Of them all, Calculus 2 seemed to be the most focused on "memorize this bunch of unjustified heuristics", and Calculus 3 was one of the first and only times I really experienced the Wonders of Math in an actual course.
Oh, and for further anecdata, without being able to convert to letter grades, I got a 75% in Statistics 1 and failed (post-grad level) Intro to Machine Learning last year due to taking the courses without the continuous probability-theory prereq, and then retook Machine Learning this year to get an 86%.
It seems to me that a lot of variation in math grades can be very easily explained by differences in previous preparation.
As someone whose day-job largely consists of teaching Calculus 1, 2, and 3, I heartily with you about what they are like! If I could redesign the curriculum from scratch, Calculus 3 would definitely come before Calculus 2 (for the most part), and far fewer people would be required to ever take Calculus 2 at all.
ETA: I'm talking about the curriculum in most colleges in the U.S., so I hope that you are too; other countries' curricula can vary a lot.
Calc 3 for me was Multivariate Calculus.
Actually, yeah, requiring more people to take Multivariate Calculus and fewer people to take Assorted Sequence/Series and Integration Heuristics sounds like a fine idea.
Yep, sounds like we're talking about the same curriculum.